Transformation
by Evance
Summary: A person cannot grasp true power while they remain human. Reviews are especially welcome.
1. Prologue V2

**Transformation**

Disclaimer: I do not own this series, but I am proud to fictionally destroy its image for my own amusement.

_Prologue _

He was having that dream again… that nightmare.

He was absolutely lost… in the vastness of space. There was nothing to hold onto. Sight held no comfort as the world was awash in myriads of shades of grey and black. The harsh environment was second to the incredible fear of losing himself. It encompassed every overpowering worry, every painful memory and every problem he had in his life. It was if he was tumbling deep in an alien ocean without any sense of direction or hope of escape.

But his worry grew. He knew instinctively with every fiber of his being that this dream, this nightmare, had lasted far too long. He wanted the sweet relief of waking up in his bed unharmed. This was not peaceful sleep. His drugged mind dug through his memory and remembered a rare side effect of cryogenic sleep: terrible nightmares.

For a seeming eternity, he waited in this unfocused horrifying reality lost in his own mind. He tried to desperately find leverage in this limbo only furthering the disorientation. It was as if winds buffeted him. The very environment taunted him, tortured him, and loved every moment of it.

With all his strength, he mentally cried out in anguish and kicked suddenly feeling as if he was only underwater. The nightmarish realm had given way to familiar blue seas. He felt himself rapidly sinking in the cold salty water. But he had hope now; he could see the sky as if through a clear window. A brilliant sky painted with forgiving blues and calm puffs of pure white clouds. He pushed himself feeling a strange sense of vertigo as he swam upward. With a triumphant gasp of air, he broke the ocean surface.

Eyes opened to harsh bright light and he struggled to wake himself quickly. Unease had pervaded his conscious self and his mind recovered from its nightmares. Where was he? His memory was shot and his mental strength too exhausted to remember. His name…

"Arthur Kinsley," the sinister deep voice reverberated and the world seemed to vibrate with its every word. Arthur… that was his name. The memory jolted his senses. Adrenaline rushed into his limbs as he tried to move only now realizing his body was almost completely paralyzed. Even blinking took effort.

"That is your name… or for our purposes… that was your name. You see Arthur Kinsley, with no close family and a notable loner, died from an unforeseen accident at his construction job. The terra-forming of a planet is hazardous work, I'm afraid."

Arthur could not turn his head to see who was talking. He could barely make up the endless, smooth metallic ceiling through the bright artificial light. He could only listen to every word from the voice. Every word was a lie. He had been purposely abducted. The sting of the tranquilizer in his memory jolted more memories loose. His anti-social personality had finally caught up to him. Whenever he took a break, he always went to a very quiet part of the upcoming plant that no one else went. They found him. The sound of the hard end of the rifle meeting his skull was the last thing he remembered. They tranquilized him and then beat him unconscious. Fear burned greater through his being.

"You are unfortunately our very last chance. We… I need you to finish the pinnacle of my work."

Arthur felt some strength return to his muscles. And he tilted his neck sideways before becoming too weak to move again and came face to face with a set of wicked looking surgical instruments.

"I am sure you know of nano-technology, bunch of bulky microscopic machines milling around in the guise of modern medical science."

The rather insidious looking hypodermic needle to Arthur's right was the standard nanite delivery. In certain surgeries, these machines were guided by technicians to repair nearly fatal wounds.

"Unfortunately, nanotechnology has pretty much stagnated for a couple centuries now given the odd innovation here and there. They're too precise for those controlling it. Great for repairing manufactured parts, but human beings aren't simply stamped out from a factory. And then I'm sure you know of how many technicians it takes to utilize such machines as to not kill a patient. Far too many."

Arthur was able to turn his head and look directly into the face of voice. The man talking was unremarkable in everyway. He was the epitome of the average white man. His simple dark brown almost black hair with eyes of the same color failed to stand out in any manner. With the exception of the slight burn marks on his face, he could have blended into a crowd without a whisper.

"Now I'm afraid Arthur, that in a moment the sedatives we have given you will wear off. So I am forced to speed up the procedure." The man smiled lightly at Arthur before pulling out the hypodermic needle and inserting a small cylinder into a slot in the side.

"What I have done is created a remarkably intelligent artificial intelligence that is capable of doing serious surgery work. Most importantly, this is the most advanced piece of technology mankind has invented short of modern space ships. Not only can this repair or alter the body, but it can completely change even the most basic cell structure. It operates at a level thousand of times more precise, maneuverable, and efficient than current nanite technology."

Arthur could not scream when he felt the needle enter his arm and a strange cold wave sweep throughout his entire body. His muscles clench of their own accord. His heart beat a thousand times a second.

"What I have been working on is a way of completely altering the body while preserving most of the bodies mass."

Arthur struggled to hold onto consciousness again and to stave off the nightmares.

"What the nanites are going to do, Arthur, is give you the gift of perfect life. Not all creatures in this universe are created equal. Some the Company has found are superior to human kind in almost everyway with the exception of intelligence. Imagine, Arthur, a killing machine with the wit of a human being."

The man's voice was calm contrasting Arthur's panicked mind. The nanites were doing something to him. He could almost feel them coursing through every vein. Waves of pain suddenly set every nerve on fire. Every organ felt like it was melting. Every cell was being ripped apart and reformed to their design.

"Stabilize him, we only got 24 hours before the blood become too acidic for further work." another voice called out. He felt his body being moved.

"He's going into shock as expected. Twenty four hours is more than enough. We'll be mostly finished in half the time. Most of the problem lies in letting the body heal." Another called in the distance. Her voice was filled with patience.

"Good day, Arthur," his tormenter sighed calmly before leaving the room. Arthur could feel muscles and tendons tear. His eyes cried blood. He could taste blood in his mouth… like copper. A thick metal door automatically loudly closed behind him and locked itself.

Agonizing pain destroyed whatever emotional restraint Arthur had left.

The cry that tore its way out of Arthur's throat was far from human, and he slipped deep into unconsciousness once again. Back into the nightmares.

_Author's Notes: My continuation of this little story depends on if it gets any attention. I write to see what others think. I usually judge how good something is by how many people react._


	2. Chapter 1

**Transformation**

_Chapter 1_

The stale air of the room kept Arthur's thoughts at bay as he smoked his fresh cigarette and waited for the world to go by. Time was no factor here because there was no way to tell it. This was his room, his safe house. His mental life personified in a metal box with tattered wallpaper that emulated a fine wood grain. It was his own run down little apartment in the back of his mind. Only one door was the exit.

He casually brought the tequila to his parched lips and savored the smooth taste puffing another lungful of smoke. The now empty shot glass banged solidly against the oak table as he set it down to pour more from the bottle. He leaned back in his padded green chair worn from overuse and poor maintenance much like the other chair next to him. The drink slid down smooth again easing his mind. It was the best he ever had, because he remembered the best he ever had.

The only exit, the door in front of him was also painted green. It was an old wooden door, decayed from overuse with rusted metal hinges that could have dated back to the 19th century. It was unkempt as with the rest of the apartment. It was too worn to provide any protection. It was all he needed.

Beyond that door was the realm of nightmares. The infinity of darkness that one could get lost in for all eternity. And it stared him in the face through that door laughing at him. It begged his curiosity to open it. It begged him with optimistic cheers. It questioned that perhaps beyond that frail wooden barrier was a heaven instead of a hell.

But the courage he held was as solid as the liquid that flowed down his throat and the puffs of smoke from his cigarette. So he waited for the world to go by fearful of what lay beyond that door and terrified of never finding out. And then all his fears answered for him. Great screeching and hissing echoed behind the door. Whatever demons lay beyond that barrier to hell were going to break through in a matter of moments.

So he waited for the world to go by drinking his tequila and smoking his cigarette. The door began to creak now under the weight of the monster. He could now sense it was only one. It was trying to claw its way through into his room. It wanted him.

So he waited, set down the drink, and snuffed out the cigarette.

The doors became jagged shrapnel as it blew open. Arthur came face to face… to himself standing in the doorway. This other Arthur stood smiling at him seeming to welcome and congratulate him. The peaceful face was ruined as it contorted as if something was wearing his body as a costume. Rivulets of deep red blood began to pour from his every vein, and his skin seemed to burst.

Arthur could only stare at the grotesque abomination that gorily took the place of his doppelganger. It was humanoid even disturbingly human. But the nearly black chitin shell that covered it was utterly alien. The head was nothing more than an elongated, smooth and polished dome. It grinned at him with silver teeth as a wicked spear-shaped tail, a deadly extension of its backbone, fluttered behind it almost as long as it was. It was a strange combination of sickness, the visible ribcage, and hostility, the claws and tail that spoke of an emotionless killing machine.

It looked at him as it entered the room with its eerily human gait and sat down next to him in the adjacent seat. It laughed with his voice as it also picked up a cigarette, lit it, and breathed smoked into his face.

Arthur woke screaming. Everywhere scientists milled around him desperately working on large, incomprehensible consoles and other sorts of complicated computer equipment. Most were wearing full body, heavy duty suits. And the huge steel automatic door straight ahead of him was guarded by a small army of heavily armed marines. He realized he was trapped in a clear tube of some sort filled with a clear thick liquid. He was the center of attention here, the main attraction in the back center of the room. His tortured body caught up to him, he breathed agony as tried to break the glass that held him prisoner.

"He was not supposed to wake!" One young scientists voice was impossibly clear even through the sloshing of the liquid that held him and the full body suit that covered the man's face.

"Calm down, it cannot break through the glass as it is."

Arthur recognized his tormenter. He tried to punch through the glass when he heard every bone in his body creak and every muscle burn. It was parts of his body had changed but others struggled to catch up. With vision blurred from the water, Arthur stared directly into the cool eyes of the leader of these scientists, the voice, and his bane of existence.

"We will now begin the process of altering the brain. He must have a strong will to be able to wake up halfway through."

The lead scientist nodded at an underling and Arthur suddenly felt completely cold. He tried to break the glass one more time when he realized his hands had changed. They were almost claws and the skin was covered in some sort of hard black shell... like the monster in his dream. Shocked, a sense of acceptance dawned over him as he fell back into unconsciousness. The sterile landscape of the lab folded under him and remolded itself into his mental room. And again he was not alone.

"Are you afraid of me?" The creature before him laughed as it spoke and flipped through a photo album. Pictures of him were haphazardly placed over every page from every moment in his life. Its mouth moved as if it was speaking but Arthur could see it had an inner jaw that should have made it biologically incapable of speech.

"Surprised, I can talk Arthur?" Its voice was full of mirth. He looked around his room noticing slight changes. In place of the door, thick beams of plywood sealed shut the opening. Patches of a strange black substance, similar in unnatural design to the monster beside him, covered half the room.

"You still think of me as a monster now don't you?" It laughed again as it drank from Arthur's bottle of tequila and commented.

"The best I ever had… because I remembered it."

Arthur stepped back into the wall trying to widen the distance between himself and this abomination.

"Oh, Arthur. You really don't understand now don't you?"

The creature with incredible speed leaped right in front of Arthur. Its arms, muscles like steel bands, clasped around Arthur's neck and pulled him a foot of the ground his back still against the wall. He coughed spitting blood and tried to weakly pry the alien hands from his throat. But it held him still and it laughed as he pathetically struggled.

"Come now, Arthur, you don't hear that buzzing sound now?" In the distance he could hear a oncoming swarm of bees. It was the only sound other the words from the murderous demon.

"Our friends outside are almost finished, almost complete." Its hand clenched harder around his neck cutting off precious blood supply. One could not die in a dream, could they? Were nightmares different? The creature continued to laugh at some victory he could not hope to guess.

"Don't fear me, Arthur!"

The buzzing grew louder now, closer to the room. He viciously kicked the creature; his shin felt like it had hit the outer hull of a military cruiser. Still it laughed and cried in amusement. Then he imperceptibly felt a switch being pulled, his physical mind suddenly shifted as the nanites finally bore into his brain. Neurons fired desperately as they were remolded to their masters' will but left unharmed.

"Don't fear me, Arthur," it said.

"It's not good to fear yourself."

And suddenly he was the creature laughing as he strangled himself against the wall.

_Author's Note: Would anyone like to pre-read? I'm only human and I tend to miss mistakes and such. Thanks a bunch._


	3. Chapter 2 V2

**Transformation**

Disclaimer: I do not own this series. Or do I?

_Chapter 2_

Phantom hands still grasped his throat as Arthur awoke. His mind and body was instantly awake. He felt as if he had slept three days after running a marathon. And he realized everything was horribly wrong.

The dull metallic world that surrounded him had changed dramatically becoming a lurid expansive world of vivid colors too clear to be real. He was trapped in a room that was barely 8 feet in size with a glaring, explosively reflective window, and it was the most breath taking place he had ever seen. The floors, the wall, the ceiling, and the glass window made up this beautiful prison and felt as heavily armored as the outer hull of a battleship. The smells and scents overwhelmed him. Something coated every facet of this room… It was sensory overload and he could barely grasp half of it.

Arthur wished the changes stopped there. The world had not only changed… he had changed… he did not need to look, he could feel everything. His spine had extended into an unbelievably dangerous appendage tipped with a extremely sharp spear like blade. They had done this to him. His skin had become hard almost armor like and formed into an exoskeleton resembling a human skeleton. The sense of touch was incredibly diminished; he could only feel pressure. They had changed him. His hands… the claw like hands… built like a human's with brutal strength. Hands he could almost feel choking him… killing off his humanity.

A sound approached him; a heavy automatic door usually used for airlocks slid straight open silhouetting three human figures; and the world beyond the window clarified. Sound and vision were intricately connected now. Sound clarified images giving a sharper view of whatever made the sound. Every footstep from these people gave him a view past that intensely brilliant glass wall… a one way mirror he assumed. Three people stood before him studying him extensively with the guise of scientific innocence. He knew better to call these people scientists, even when they played their part furiously typing glaringly obvious records into conveniently placed networked computers recessed into holes of the outer walls. They were murderers! All of them! Especially the leader who stared him down with steel eyes; the kind faced man took his humanity in the name of innocent science.

He wanted to kill this man to reach out with the weapon his body had become and to tear his damned heart out. He could see the heart; it beat with such regularity that all of his vital organs were highlighted, easy targets. Teeth bared revealing a inner jaw, and alien rage consumed him. Murderer! He should die like the dog he is! He threw himself bodily at the window unconsciously positioning himself so he could deal the most damage with the greatest applicable force. With the grace of a lion, he slammed headfirst into the brilliant window bouncing harmlessly off it none the worst for wear. The man did not flinch even as the less experienced scientists twitched and picked up the pace of their work. He yelled in rage giving out an earth shattering alien roar of bloodthirsty malevolence. But the window, this thin piece of sturdy material kept him at bay.

The lead scientist was not smiling nor was he smug. He just stared me down ignoring the gratuitous violence he leveled at the glass window. He swiped claws and threw his tail as a javelin through the air, but the glass remained intacd. Unharmed. Not even a scratch. For a moment, he had become the monster again trying to feed his madness with the flesh of his enemy.

"Dr. Lorne, we're done here." The other scientists, the ones who showed fear, broke into a dead run out of the room. The immense airlock like door sealed shut behind them leaving Arthur and Lorne staring daggers at one another.

Lorne… his name snapped Arthur out of his senseless rage. He had a name now. The world past that wall of glass was getting dimmer. Arthur knew he was still there, but he was barely making any sounds but steady breathing and a healthy beating of a heart. He looked like a shadow and soon he appeared to vanish leaving Arthur and his reflection facing off against each other. Arthur walked up closely to the mirror, his body moved like some predator stalking for its kill. Pulling himself to his feet as he stood tall, Arthur examined every inch of himself. The long oblong head was smooth and polished and his outer skin was a caricature of the human skeleton. In every right, he was monstrous, demon like, and dangerous, but his mind was still completely human. He hoped.

"I know you're still there." Dr. Lorne's whispered bringing back the rage Arthur sought to suppress and his furious grimace bared surprisingly human but strong teeth set on equally powerful jaws. The inner jaw nested itself slightly outside of the mouth ready to strike.

"We all have a role here. I do my duty for the Company. What the Company wants me to do is criminal. I understand that."

Dr. Lorne walked to the same set of computers his fellow underlings had worked on and calmly typed in a key set of instructions. A nearby camera nestled deep into a wall far from human sight softly clicked off leaking its location to Arthur.

"Arthur Kinsley, as far as anyone is concerned outside this room… I have failed. The nanites, in my report, failed leaving the subject amnesiac." Lorne told his tale with great consternation. Arthur could feel the tone behind his voice somehow… Lorne was not lying.

"If I do my job as I should. This project would have been successful a decade earlier. But… if the Company feels they have invested so much into this program… perhaps they will hesitate and use my technology for purposes outside of the military…" Lorne ruffled his hair, rubbed the minor burn scars on his face, and breathed heavily into his hand. Stress fell off him waves.

"Dr. Lorne… please report to docking bay." The room echoed the artificial female shouts from the intercom. The ceiling sharpened as the sound reverberated from its source next to a light fixture. It was an obvious ship or possibly space station grade AI. The type that was capable of overriding human orders given enough data and a pertinent situation.

"Acknowledged, Mother." Dr. Lorne finished his work on the computer.

"Unfortunately, I have to leave. An unwanted guest has arrived, a Company representative…" Lorne turned his back to Arthur as he walked out of the room. The heavy barricade of a door gracefully swished open. The hidden camera powered itself back as if no time had passed. Before leaving Arthur to himself, he cocked his head back and whispered something Arthur almost failed to catch.

"Keep yourself sane. Don't forget who you are."

The finality of his advice supplemented the superfluous clatter of metal enclosing itself back into place detaining him from the rest of the world. Without any sound to clarify images outside of the one way mirror, Arthur's world shrank back into the small cell he woke up in. He had nothing to do but wait here and contemplate. His reflection contrasted with the mental image of himself. He could feel the stress and shock of his plight began to wear away at the edges of his sanity.

Arthur stood where he was waiting for something to happen. No one else came. Nothing moved. Everything was eerily silent. It barely registered when he punched the glass and began viciously trying to shatter it. He threw himself in his self conscious desperate rampage to get out. Eventually he grew tired hours later. That left him to himself.

Lorne's words kept him awake and alive. There was no way to tell time. Boredom became his major concern. There was nothing to do here but test out this new body forced onto to him. Even that novelty began to wear off as familiarity took its place. But he never felt entirely comfortable. He felt like he was on a constant adrenaline high.

Perhaps days had passed, but his alien metabolism worked havoc with his sense of time. He did not feel tired when he felt he should have. He would find out later hunger was no problem. But without any form of interaction or any way to occupy the mind, Arthur's thoughts turned suicidal.

But his fear of death and lack of courage saved him in the end. He was no fan of pain. When he flung his tail to rip through his wrist, the resulting scratch gave a new definition to the word agony. He may have almost completely lost the sense of touch, but he had gained an unwanted ability to clearly sense damage done to him. The blood that dripped from the small hole in his wrist struck the floor.

The metal smoldered throwing scents across the room. His blood was acidic? There was a noticeable mark on the floor from where his blood had tried to burn through. With alien sensibilities, he knew he should have done more damage than the slight mark left. The strange coating he had smelled and seen all over the walls and ceiling spoke of unnatural chemicals. The foreign veneer of the substance must have neutralized the acid. It explained the toxic feeling that surrounded him but failed to hurt him. They were ready for any problem that occurred. They knew what he was, what he was made of, and what abilities he had.

He did not want to die or suffer. So he waited hoping to have something to do or see before he absolutely went mad. Games presented themselves in his mind to keep him occupied so as he did not go mad. As a loner, he was no stranger to a lack of human contact but was unprepared for the trauma of driving oneself mad.

Eventually at regular intervals scientists would come in, notably in shifts, and study his cell writing down something on a notepad with a writing utensil before hurriedly moving on. He gave them names when they came. Johnson, Mary, Bob, Alice, and Mr. Jackass. He guessed their names from their looks. Johnson was some no name technician who seemed to act as the janitor efficiently working on the computers recessed into the wall. Mary was a modest elderly woman perhaps in her forties who walked with experience. She was no fun and held no fear of him. Bob seemed to have no life to him and no creativity. He was just a slow moving, tall man of possible Indian descent who let the world run by. Alice… well, she was an arrogant youthful girl who muttered explicatives under her breath about her superiors. But the most entertaining person was Mr. Jackass, the village idiot. He was a squirrelly looking man who had difficulty picking up his pen and not urinating himself when he studied him. Often Arthur would wait at the back of his cell just for this man. When he came and stood next to his window as he studied him and looked down to write on his notepad, Arthur would run quietly and stand right in front of him. That man may have been weak but he could jump extraordinarily far in surprise. Judging by his screams, Mr. Jackass had a healthy set of lungs. Judging by the smells, he had poor bladder control.

Eating was barely tolerated. They did not treat him as a human being or even as an intelligent animal. The food was simply large chunks of bloody, raw meat mixed from a variety of dumb animals that fell from a small hole in the back wall. He could not escape through the tiny opening. He tried. At first, Arthur refused to eat the food placed in front of him. But his hunger got the best of him and he gave in to savagely gorging himself in primal satisfaction.

Every meal left him contented but unsatisfied.

But he could never overcome the feeling of hopelessness and boredom of this life… at least not on his own. When the food came, he ate slowly hoping that by savoring the meal he could kill time. Then he found a small gift. The chunk of mixed meat he was eating, perhaps his sixth meal, came with something extra. It was a simple white pamphlet of some sort; it was something to read. He protectively clutched the small pamphlet and looked about the room hoping that no one would notice and feel it out of place.

_Xenomorph Biology: Required Reading Material for all employees of the classified space station "Dreamland."_

The text was a simple black font. Arthur carefully flipped the page as not to damage his prize. _Known information_, he read in his thoughts. The pamphlet was absolutely short, but the information detailed was a true eye opener. The creature he had become was discovered almost sixty years ago. There were different types of Xenomorphs; the most common being the drones, the warriors, and the venerable Queen. The warriors described had smooth polished foreheads and were known for their greater strength. They had made him a warrior of sorts? Were they mad?

His concentration broke when two figures entered the outer room. To his surprise, Arthur recognized Dr. Lorne as he led another man directly to his cell. Arthur quickly hid the pamphlet underneath himself and crouched to cover it.

"This is it. Billions of credits for a barely conscious animal cowering in the back of a room." Hostility adorned every word from this man. He was the antithesis of Dr. Lorne. He was over six feet tall of Russian descent and heavily built with a steel jaw. Only the white lab coat he wore and the thin glasses showed he was a scientist and not a body builder.

"Dr. Nolan, I have been very accommodating of your continued presence in this project. If I have been patient with you, I demand the same patience out of you!" Lorne's tone increasingly grew louder.

"Lorne, I mean no hostility." Dr. Nolan's voice was ripe with sarcasm. "You understand that I am a representative of the Company on this matter. I am only here to see if you are following our procedures and not wasting hard earned money."

"If the Company felt my project was wasting money they would have sent someone neutral, not the head of a competing military project!"

Nolan laughed and patted Lorne on his back further inciting Lorne's anger.

"I am not stupid, Nolan. You know very well that your involvement here is not by accident. So tell me Nolan why are you here? I have been kind to you, answer me."

"I have always been a fan of your work, Dr. Lorne. The Company would never hurt its own." If Arthur could laugh he would have, his former job was directly responsible for the well being of a Company terra-forming project.

"But it came to my attention that a great deal of the money you requested was not flowing to where the Company wanted it to go. Now I checked your records myself because I am loyal to our Company. You see, a good ten percent of your budget was going into several alternative corporations."

Lorne visibly grit his jaw as Nolan expunged every one of his secrets.

"You know your technology, falling into the wrong hands, could result in many deaths."

Veins popped out of Dr. Lorne's throat as he yelled his rebuttal at Nolan.

"You don't give a fuck, Nolan! The Company doesn't give a damn about how many people live or die in this matter. All they care about is profit and the technology to keep it. We could be saving lives. But they are terrified of what these nanites could do."

Nolan did not flinch and responded enthusiastically.

"So many other companies are highly reliant on the current model of nanite delivery. You introduce yours to the public and a great many of these smaller companies would simply go out of business. That would in turn cost the Company billions. You're no accountant; your genius lies in atrocity. Now, Lorne, how many of these things do you have here." Nolan asked sternly. The hidden camera whirred at Lorne's direction recording his every word including his previous outburst. So Dr. Lorne was left no choice but to cooperate hoping the Company would keep him alive. Judging from Dr. Nolan's "grace," the Company was unwilling to kill him just yet.

"About twenty were successful including the Queen."

The sheer scope of the project dawned on Arthur. How many had died to lead to him? Why was he alive? There was an internal war within the Company and Arthur had front row seats. He slowly walked up to the window as Lorne and Nolan's fought their war with words. Their conversation improved his vision, he could almost see the great hallway of rooms just like his own… Was he the last in a series of horrifying experiments? His focus turned back to the two doctors as their arguments grew harsher. Words were now laced with poison.

"Really? Tell me, Lorne. How strong is this glass?" Nolan requested abruptly. Dr. Lorne blanched beginning to perceive some sort of threat to his well being.

"Why do you need to know that?"

That question sparked the match and time seemed to slow. Arthur watched the drama unfolding. Everyone seemed to move as if drowning in molasses. Nolan withdrew a large deadly handgun from underneath his coat and leveled it at Lorne.

"Dr. Nolan! Are you mad? Don't you realize what these creatures are? What they are capable of?"

Dr. Lorne's voice cracked acknowledging Dr. Nolan's threat.

"I have outgrown my patience with you, Lorne and so has the Company. They want results, and we are going to show them what these things can do." Nolan reached back into his coat, pulled out a small metallic brick, and stuck it onto the wall. An emotionless young woman's voice acknowledged itself from the device. Arthur could see and hear the brick slowly power itself up. It was a bomb and it was on his window! He rocketed into the back corner wall and braced himself curling into a fetal position. This was certainly going to hurt.

"Warning! Hazardous material detected!" The cool voice of Mother lacked the emotion of worry, but the message was nonetheless clear.

Nolan cursed to himself silently forgetting about the installations artificial intelligence.

"Calm now, Mother, Saints come only after death, a23fb60."

"Company override; System Shutdown acknowledged."

Nolan turned back to Lorne, grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him to the outer door. Nolan uncaringly pressed the handgun deep into Lorne's back as he escorted him out of the room leaving Arthur alone with the irritating ticking device. Every fiber of his being voiced danger and Arthur prayed he would survive. The advanced sonic bomb detonated shattered all the windows of all the cells. The glass projectiles sprayed over Arthur cutting small grooves throughout his entire body. A small pool of acidic blood guttered sending smoke into regulated air. Delicate computer equipment subjected to the blast shut down into stand by. He shrieked as his vision became so intense as to be painful. He felt consciousness begin to slip through his fingers.

This was the first time Arthur had slept since he first woke up only a week ago.

_Author's Note: If you're wondering, this is based solely on the information from the movies. It is not much, but I try to keep it vague as to not offend those who read any books based on the series. Oh and I also noticed another fan fiction being written also has a main character called Arthur and another fan fiction being written also has this human to alien transformation. I'm thinking of renaming Arthur to "Arthur-infinitely-better-than-that-other-one" and renaming the story "Transformation (MY IDEA! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!)" but some people may take offense._


	4. Chapter 3 V2

**Transformation**

Disclaimer: I do not own this series.

_Chapter 3_

To the outside world, Arthur was little more than a slumped, sprawled out unconscious xenomorph in the corner of the room. But in his mind, Arthur was far from blissfully asleep. The room he envisioned as his safe-house had changed… drastically. Half of it was how he remembered it, a dump of an apartment; the other half was a hive like structure, a cornucopia of alien shapes that resembled alien body parts, that he could have blended in perfectly. Or not. He glanced at his human hands and felt normal human features. He was human here…

"You like what I've done with the place?"

Arthur violently flinched now noticing the alien intruder sitting in the alien half of the room almost completely invisible.

"Intruder? Me oh my! I'm getting popular now!" The Alien bit into a pastry… a twinkie.

"Damn, these are good." It savored every bite and noticed Arthur's angry stare.

"Oh that's right… for the past week you have been eating nothing but raw beef and pork and possibly animal droppings mixed in with it all. I've been enjoying every piece of food you have ever eaten. And I gotta tell ya though. Humans are masters of the culinary arts." The Alien proceeded to exaggeratedly down a huge bottle of soda letting out a gargantuan satisfied burp.

"Are you still on edge about the whole strangling thing? The Alien was suddenly in Arthur's face patting him on the shoulder.

"That was a metaphor! You know, you becoming the alien thing? It's poetry! Much like this tasty bagel!" The creature downed it in a single bite. Arthur remembered the moment he downed that bagel himself.

"Mmm mm! Good! Hey, you know what you need here? Oh why do I ask questions, you usually just drink and smoke tequila. Party pooper!"

With the grace of an acrobat, the Alien flipped upward spinning twice in the air and latched onto the ceiling. He dropped down onto to the floor holding a delicious margarita. Of course nothing spilled.

"These things here are much, MUCH better than that plain tequila crap you keep drinking. You know what you need Mr. Loser!

With a snap of its fingers, a beautiful high definition holographic display appeared. The same one Arthur had wanted and had been saving up to buy with his money.

"Look at how crisp that display is! Thank god for the consumerism! Beautiful!" The Alien handed a half eaten bowl of popcorn over to Arthur. It took him a few seconds to realize he was now sitting in the chair watching the display. His chair had become the equivalent of a sports car. It was like sitting on a cloud.

"Shhh!" The Alien held its finger to its mouth. The romantic comedy being played picked up its pace. The creature laughed freely and seemed to wipe tears from its "eyes." "This is the good part! Go get 'im girl!"

The Alien finally finished the movie applauding the whole way leaving a dumbfounded Arthur holding a bowl of popcorn.

"Hey! You gonna eat that? I made a whole bowl! What's wrong with you! That's good popcorn, can't let that go to waste!"

The bowl was suddenly in front of the alien's face as it demolished what was left of the food. It set the bowl on the table half assimilated by the alien features. They stared at each other for a long time.

"You're quiet. I guess that suits us."

The Alien flipped through a magazine with reading glasses on.

"Oh and by the way, word of advice, when ya wake up… you're gonna have the most agonizing headache you ever had."

With that Arthur woke up from the most surreal dream he ever had with the biggest migraine he ever had. The screech that tore itself from his throat was bestial but an obvious sign of agony. His whole head, the enormous, smooth long cranium, pounded and pulsed with each wave of pain. Arthur could barely control himself as he rolled around on the ground in a mock epileptic seizure. The pain lessoned and his senses came back to him as pulled himself to his feet.

The bomb! Klaxons blared as whirling red emergency lights shed eerie shadows over debris of the shattered window. Arthur felt wounds from the shrapnel across his body finally finish healing.

For a while he stood at the corner of the room preparing his strength and wondering if this was all an experiment. Maybe all they wanted was a reason to kill him and when he left they turn his body into a holy carcass to complement the destroyed window. He waited. No one came.

He tentatively exited the prison that had become his unwanted home. With the exception of the sirens, there was no sound around him. The vault like entrance was bent open as if a giant can opener tore halfway through it. Or as if something incredibly strong pulled it open. His cell was the first of a series of cells bordered by the single hallway. The computers recessed into the walls spat incomprehensible data garbage on cracked monitor displays. He lightly touched the screen and cringed when it finally broke utterly and shorted itself off. There was a very good chance the Artificial Intelligence, generically called Mother, was attempting to restart itself. Artificial Intelligences were almost always left on because they took a ridiculously long time to boot up; the best Company AI took about six hours to fully restart.

Arthur quickly checked the other cells, or holding pens, finding them all empty. They were all identical to his own. Judging by the light scrapes that covered every other room; whatever was there had been there for a long time. Perhaps there were others like him who had gone mad and then escaped? He would have to proceed cautiously. If the others did indeed see him as threat, he doubted he would win in a fight against more experienced or insane foes. But there had to be a huge presence of fulltime guards and soldiers… perhaps the others that escaped were still engaged in a battle with the Company's lackeys. There was certainly nothing happening nowhere near here; he would have sensed something by now. Being the closest to the sonic blast, he probably took the most damage and was knocked out the longest. But first things first, he needed to know where he was, what happened, how to get out, and how to reverse the process that changed him.

The main entrance to these experiment rooms was six inches thick of the same coated metal that covered his old cell. Arthur could not quite fit through the aperture the others must have made when trying to escape. Unsure of himself, he pushed as hard as he could against the door hoping to slide it open. Whatever damaged machinery that locked the door broke inwards, and Arthur almost unbalanced himself as half the door slid wide open. He stared slightly at his hands again suddenly aware of the immense strength he now possessed. He was a monster, and he wanted answers. The hiss he gave was his only sign of anger. Instinctively, he dropped into a quadruped stance and sprinted full speed out of the laboratory hoping to find out what happened.

Several minutes later, Arthur came to the conclusion that he was completely and utterly trapped. Whoever had designed this installation was a smart son of a bitch. The whole place spoke of functionality over artistic integrity. There was a center area, a sort of rest room, bordered by five doorways. One was the broken open door he had exited, two others were identical in look and damage, one was the standard emergency airlock, and the last was possibly the main entrance to this place. The center area spoke of battle. Utilitarian furniture, simple metal chairs, plain sofas, and a holographic display were all bent out of shape, broken, melted, or ridden with bullet holes. The centerpiece was LV 0091's Desert Cactus, a vine-like mass intertwined into a shape of a evergreen tree and covered in shark teeth-like thorns. It had been one of the first plant life discovered outside of Earth. And it was covered in blood from the soldier impaled on the top of it. He did not die from being eviscerated by the plant's spines; the hole straight through his skull probably killed him. One of the other aliens killed this man and then threw him onto the blades of the plant. Arthur's inner jaws twitched as he knew exactly what had struck the man so hard as to cave in his skull.

Arthur recognized the pulse rifle clutched in the dead man's hands. He leaned over and yanked it out of his vice-like grip. Damn. The guard apparently did hit whatever he was firing at. It was riddled with acidic burns, the clip itself had basically melted into the gun. It was useless. The pistol seemed to be working. Hoping the action movies he had watched were somewhat accurate; Arthur armed himself with the pistol.

There were other rooms of course behind four other doors; including the room he came from that had to be five total rooms. Every door had been pried open except for the main exit. Two of them rooms resembled the same type of holding pens he had been placed in. There were twenty one total cells and all of them were destroyed. The third, a room full of computer equipment with a few holding tanks spread towards the back of the room, was where "he" had be born… where he had lost his humanity. The plain text proudly proclaimed the room as the Nanite Control Room. It sickened him to the point of nausea to stay any longer in that place of death, his death; so he left and remained steadfastly in the center room trying to unravel the mystery of what had happened. That only left two doors. One of them was obviously the way out. It was much larger and stronger of the same vault like design of the others. There were slight dents and scratches over it proving to Arthur the others must have tried to get out through there and failed. His attempts only added slightly deeper dents.

That only left the last exit… the airlock. As a construction worker, he had to perform several space walks in his lifetime repairing damage from small meteorites or the occasional explosion from poorly maintained equipment. The space walks always reminded him of his true fear of being lost in a endless void. And he doubted with all his heart that the others escaped through that airlock. No signs of damage were noticeable. If they did, they were probably sucked straight out into space forever lost. He shuddered slightly. That left him with no exits stuck in a slightly bigger prison than the one he left. With some luck, maybe he could get out of here.

"Emergency, imminent danger detected. Hazardous lifeforms detected." Mother's voiced echoed across the rooms stopping Arthur dead in his tracks. The emergency lights shut itself off as the normal lighting was restored. Mother had restarted. He had been out for a six hours? He must have been hurt worse than he thought. Still that meant he could access the video records of what happened.

The only computers undamaged by the blast were in the Nanite Control Room. That same strange feeling of nausea overwhelmed Arthur as he started up to one of the computer terminals. He did not want to stay here longer than possible. The command line prompt on the monitor flickered for basic input. A quick directory check revealed the whole system was completely integrated into every computer. When Mother had restarted, all the restrictions on all the files had been removed. Or someone had purposefully removed all the restrictions. Was this a sick experiment created by that Dr. Nolan? Were they testing out the effectiveness of their creations by setting them loose in a controlled environment against heavily armed Company individuals with full access to classified information? With that access, he doubted they wanted anyone left alive. The Company had too many atrocities to answer for.

He set his gun down by a working computer station. A few keystrokes opened up all the video file records. A sharp beautiful interface ballooned onto the monitors highlighting the records of the past six hours. He gently touched the screen playing the records.

The first clip showed what he had expected. Rooms of cells like his own mostly occupied by other xenomorphs. The video clip blanched jumping from a pristine controlled laboratory setting to a destroyed chaotic battleground. Someone had deleted the record of Dr. Nolan's sabotage. Static clung to the once clear image as the camera attempted to adjust despite being damaged. The other xenomorphs blurred like wild animals as they fled the holding pens and beyond the view of the camera. Their screams of rage and ferocity joined the vicious sound of metal being dented and ripped open. Arthur quickly switched to the camera covering the center area.

The others destroyed the exits at almost the same time swarming out into the center area. The main exit, a door several feet thick of battleship grade metal was heavily guarded by a small battle group of marines that hastily opened fire hoping to give enough time for the scientists to escape. The panicked civilians wasted no time in running past the marines into the relative safety beyond the doors. The other xenomorphs scattered spreading out the main fire and panicking the marines present. Shots went wild and failed to hit their mark. One of the soldiers fell behind in his attempt to evacuate the civilians. He barely had time to pull the trigger sending a short yell of bullets as the alien's inner jaw burst through his head. The glancing blow to the drone that killed him sent mild waves of acidic blood onto his pulse rifle. The xenomorph wasted no time and victoriously threw the corpse onto the Desert Cactus. But despite the speed and strength of the others, the main exit sealed itself far too quickly. The short fire fight ended with one human dead. Otherwise nothing living had been killed.

The enraged trapped creatures clawed at every door and broke through any room. The majority raked claws against the main exit and screeched in irritation when all their efforts proved useless. A few of them wildly upturned furniture and took their time destroying everything around them. And even fewer examined the world around them picking up small objects like a child discovering a new toy. Then they all stopped what they were doing and lined up next to the airlock. Airlocks had an outer and inner door. Once the inner door closed, atmosphere would be pumped out of the room, and then the outer door opened into the vacuum of space. The creatures stormed out of the airlock clinging insect-like to the outer hull. The camera flickered again. For a moment, Arthur thought he glimpsed a massive figure enveloped in the shadows follow where the others left. Then the recording stopped. A message kindly informed Arthur of a sudden system reboot deactivating all nonessential equipment.

That was it. They escaped right through the airlock. With dejected acceptance, Arthur shambled back to the airlock pistol in hand. The inner doors automatically opened beckoning him inwards. The airlock itself was only large enough for two people of average height to fit comfortably. If the others survived in a vacuum, he had no doubt that he could as well. He felt his insides churn as he entered the coffin-like inner alcove; the air around him chilled from either the proximity to open space or from his fear. He stepped lightly into the airlock. The door roared behind him as it shut. The room removed the atmosphere whispering hostile hisses. He noticed the control panel near the outer door was left half finished and uncovered for repair. That was why the airlock opened for the others…

The outer door unlocked itself vibrating the room. Arthur tried to stall his breathe but soon acknowledged he was not actually breathing. And then it opened.

And it was beauty, indescribable beauty. His hands grasped onto the outer hull as he pulled himself outside to get a better view. With senses greater than anything comprehensible to a human being, Arthur saw what truly lay outside his prison. The background of stars shown infinitely and only gave up their brilliance to the purity of the near white sun. That sphere of white fire pulled solar flares back into its own churning exploding mass. But the brightest object in the endless space was the brown desert planet that the space station orbited. The dullness of the orbiting man-made space station contrasted greatly to the radiance of the obviously terra-formed planet directly in front of the airlock. The planet itself could not be painted or described. The colors! It glistened in the pure white light of the sun. Small seas dotted the world and sparkled with every ray of light that hit it. It was art. It was eye catching with every sense of the word. It was breathtaking if he could still breathe. The fear that coursed through his being dissipated replaced with a deep sense of understanding and peace.

He mentally snapped himself out of his reverie. It was cold. It did not hurt, but he could feel himself getting lethargic. As he moved across the outer hull he almost felt as if he was falling into the planet. The cold was exhausting him and his grip was weakening. He lost his hold on his pistol; his attempt to grab it only pushed it farther away. It floated beyond the pull of the space station's artificial and natural gravity. Crestfallen, he watched the weapon began nothingness as it slowly entered the atmosphere.

The space station was simply two box-like containers connected by a tube like corridor. That corridor connected to the locked main exit to the other part of the space station. That corridor served as a bridge to the other part of the installation. He followed the slight grooves in the metal, tracks made from the others, and picked up his pace. Adrenaline or whatever chemical served the same purpose rushed through his veins.

He found the other airlock lightly dinged from the swarm that had past through here. The outer door again closed behind him and atmosphere rushed into the room along with comforting heat. There was blood over the inner door, bright red human blood. He quickly ran out of the airlock coming into a familiar center room. No, this room was different. It had a similar center piece Desert Cactus, but the room was much bigger. Flat panel televisions and a myriad of comfortable furniture dotted the landscape. All the best in entertainment and comfort was right here melted from acidic blood or porous from a hurricane of gunfire. The battle must have been fierce judging by the blood spatters of both species coating every part of this place. There was a gigantic fissure in the floor about his size. This time the marines must have killed one of the others. There was more human blood than alien. But with the exception of light gore, no bodies remained. He glanced into the large burn spot; a barely recognizable xenomorph body had burned through the floor of the center area but had been stopped by the floor beneath it.

Again he had arrived too late coming into a battlefield. He doubted the marines expected a swarm of xenomorphs to pull through the airlock. Hell, he knew someone had to have done this purposefully. Someone had sabotaged it. The only name that answered Arthur's nagging questions was one Dr. Nolan. He was a rival to Dr. Lorne and had probably made sure this facility was overrun. But would not that have helped Lorne? Dr. Nolan only proved that he and the other creatures were deadly. That would make this project even more valuable. That would make Dr. Lorne even more valuable.

Senses blazed on fire as he felt another presence behind him. How? Something had snuck up behind him even with his enhanced senses. That only meant one thing. The hostile alien growl behind him spoke volumes. Arthur was unprepared as the other leapt at him, but he instinctively jumped and gracefully twisted in the air dodging its move. Arthur agilely fell back onto the ground on all fours exposing jowls at his opponent. The other xenomorph also fell onto all fours but did not bare teeth. Arthur took notice of his opponent appraising its strength and weaknesses. It was noticeable smaller. The first discernable difference in body structure was its cranium. It was not smooth like his but riddled with small artistic pockmarks. It also looked less deadly lacking the blade on the end of its tail and his heavier build. He recognized it as a drone from the information on the pamphlet he left in his cell.

They faced off at each other waiting for the other's attack. One was unsure of his abilities despite knowing his physical superiority. The other experienced from its previous slaughters. The red blood dripping from its mouth declared its fury. A large screech echoed through the room and past the hole in the floor as they made their move.

_Author's Ramble: Cliffhanger… this would be a great time to simply quit for three years without updating now wouldn't it? Doesn't that piss you off when that happens? It does to me._

_This chapter was originally much longer but I cut it down to add more details and such. I'm making sure each chapter from now on is at least 3,000 words. This chapter is about 3,500 words excluding my obnoxiously long author's ramble. However, a whole section of the dream sequence was removed because I wanted to keep the story at a Teen rating. It was an unnecessary, tongue-in-cheek monologue of how the alien side of Arthur could see no difference between xenomorph reproduction and human reproduction._

_PS. Basilisk9466, I was just bein' humorous (I think you know that). The story is all in my head. I think._


	5. Chapter 4

**Transformation**

_Chapter 4_

A vengeful hiss rasped the air, and Arthur kept his distance from his newfound opponent, one of the others, a drone. It was a classic scene out of an old western movie. Two opponents faced each other ready to draw weapons and end the other with a bullet through the head. The western image was marred by the futuristic surroundings, and all was destroyed, tattered, riddled with holes, and melted with alien blood. Arthur waited appraising his opponent with senses far surpassing anything human. Full 360 degree vision had been combined and enhanced by sound. Like echolocation, sound helped clear up images and its source became clearer. It was a built in early warning system. Right now, he could sense nothing.

The drone, the weaker but no less deadly creature, stood perfectly still drawing no attention from Arthur's alien senses. Arthur imagined it planning its every move. There was no telling what the drone knew about xenomorph biology such as weak points or major internal organs. This battle could get ugly.

A burst of clarity from the drone's hind legs sent waves of alarm through Arthur. It leapt straight into the air targeting Arthur. As he thought to react, his body had already thrown itself mid air to counter act the force. With his greater strength, Arthur simply flung the drone across the room. The drone slid off the wall and sloppily sprawled itself on the ground stunned. Arthur, unwilling to give up his disadvantage, instinctively pounced on his fallen foe.

The drone twisted horribly fast onto its back, grappled Arthur mid air, rolled with his momentum, and kicked Arthur right into the wall. Now on its feet, the drone launched its tail throwing its full weight into the disoriented Arthur as he slid down the wall. The tail missed by millimeters slightly denting the wall to the right of Arthur's head. The loud clang of metal shook Arthur back to his senses.

Now he was angry. Arthur aggressively drove himself into the drone headfirst. The drone, unused to unorthodox moves, gave a shriek as it was pounded into the metal wall for the second time. Returning the favor, Arthur launched his own heavier tail directly at the drones head. But inexperience weighed on his actions, and his tail rammed a few inches away from the drone's head. Unlike large dent the drone produced, Arthur's own tail actually dug a few inches into the metal with a hideous shriek that he felt all the way up his spine. The drone realizing his physical disadvantage dove away from Arthur jumping flea like from wall to ceiling and landing at the other side of the room.

That was it? Arthur's thoughts mirrored the taunting roar that echoed from his throat. He had no time to waste. Come on! The beckoning motion Arthur made with his hand was almost comical.

_Confusion? _

The emotion surprised Arthur. He was not confused. That feeling was not his own. The other drone pulled itself onto its feet and cocked its head to its side. That emotion of confusion had not come from him. Therefore, it had to have come from the other. Arthur shook himself as it finally dawned on him what he had felt. It was some sort of telepathy.

_Anger?_

Did it just ask him a question? Arthur withdrew himself from his aggressive stance, but he kept his distance. The other xenomorph made no hostile actions of its own. Yes, he was angry. But why did it attack him then?

_Understand._

Understand? Arthur wanted answers not riddles.

_Test. To Understand. To know other._

Arthur simply stared at the drone as it seemed to mewl. All it wanted was to know if he was dangerous just as he thought them to be. Judging from the past rampage around him, they both were wary of one another. He was an unknown, unproven variable to them. It was sickening to think of this thing before him as a friend. But he knew to pick his fights. If the rest of them came, he doubted he would win against a single individual let alone an army.

His carefully well thought out apology was way beyond the limited intelligence the drone was capable of. But it knew the feeling.

_No threat. Going back._

The drone did not care to check if Arthur understood its simple message. It scampered off and did whatever it is that it did. This was by far the strangest moment of his life to experience a sort of eerie camaraderie with this creature. It was almost humane. Disgust swept through Arthur again. No, they could never be humane. He… they… were murderers instinctively born to kill. The ability to love and care ended when you spilled innocent blood. He wanted his humanity back. He wanted his identity that the company stole from him. He wanted out of this god forsaken nightmare that mirrored the emotional trauma of loss so rooted into his own deep seated fears. If he could not become human again, there was a possibility that he would no longer be human. He would lose himself just like in his nightmares forever gone in a void of darkness never to return.

The cure he sought presented itself in none of the rooms in this half of the space station. The other drone was long gone. He had sensed it, barely, moving deep towards the other end of the station. For now he should explore this part. But after ten minutes of walking through the maze like halls and the illogical use of space, Arthur could still not figure out exactly where the drone had gone to. Both parts of the space station were like night and day to one another. The laboratory was given full priority, well built, logically laid out, and ready for almost any disaster except for internal sabotage. This side of the station was where the costs were cut. Much of the rooms were sloppily placed about. It seemed as if the Company had refurbished this side or moved beds, showers, and kitchens into rooms they were not meant to go. Arthur felt disoriented by how lazy the Company was in promoting a decent standard of living. More than once, he had step past hallways with live wires running across ceilings. Fire hazards lay everywhere.

Disgruntled, Arthur returned to the airlock to retrace his steps. The soldiers must have been taken completely off guard by the entry through the air lock. His search found nothing but silent living quarters, eerily clean bathrooms and shower stalls, maintenance equipment, and an armory in complete disarray devoid of anything but the heaviest weaponry. Arthur had basic training with small arms and was given basic training with a pulse rifle. He was not stupid enough to pick up the heavier smart guns and anti armor weaponry. The latter was against normal space operating procedure, a testament to the Company's disinterest in safety procedures. Pulse rifles would not break through a ships hull but an anti armor weapon would. Arthur lost interest and continued his search.

It took far more time to retrace his steps. Rooms seemed so much larger when you checked and upturned every metaphorically stone. As a construction worker, Arthur took note of the lack of air ventilation shafts and maintenance shafts. All parts of the station were easily accessible from the hallways. That would make it easy to contain an outbreak or locate an infestation. However, this design philosophy meant equipment usually hidden behind walls was out in the open cluttering hallways. It was a design that had abandoned decades ago and was strangely reminiscent of the old floating refineries notorious for being both the first completely automated space worthy ships of its kind and the for their high records of malfunctions, deaths, and equipment failure. Ironically, they had become even safer than newer models simply because of their constant overhauls, but a bad reputation was hard to change. Needless to say, this proven death trap design philosophy irked Arthur to end. However unlike the neat sterile laboratory section, this half of the station felt as if it had been lived in. It was a ghost town at the edge of the known universe. And he still had no answers!

Arthur cried bloodthirsty vengeance and dented the metal wall with an open hand thrust. There were no clues here! No answers to the questions that burned through his mind! Nothing. Just whispers and echoes! Tearing into the living quarters with in anger, Arthur threw bed sheets about, trashed the thin mattress beds and wiped personal belongings of desks. Small metal cabinets were tipped over spilling all manner of clothing onto the floor.

Just as suddenly as it appeared, the moment of rage dissipated. He metaphorically breathed deeply and relaxed from his release of pent up stress. With careful consideration and a guilty conscience, he replaced the items to their original state. There was humanity here. It came as the glint of a smile in a photograph of a loved one. He set the portrait of a smiling young lady back in its place on the cabinet. It came with the joy of each personal belonging. A trinket or a hunk of plastic and metal were cherished. This dull place had been people's homes. But their presence had given this place life and meaning. Even if they were here no longer; he would not deny them their humanity. He finished cleaning and finally left moving on to find another piece to his puzzle. A quick glance showed the portrait of the young lady was dated with her birth and her death. There was humanity here. And he had no part in it. The metal door closed behind him and the automatic lights shut off swathing the room back into darkness.

Arthur now had only one last hope. The atrocious design of this place hid away a very small hallway obscured by equipment and darkness. Lighting here had failed long ago. Bullet holes through ceiling lights answered why. Arthur walked slowly on his feet ignoring how uncomfortable it had become. His vision adjusted accordingly and instantly. Night turned into day. And now Arthur understood where he was heading. The large painted arrow on the hallway was labeled as a "docking bay." In the event of an emergency, many people would have died trying to escape through this cramped space. The architect of this place had been arrogant assuming the laboratory could contain any problems. The carnage he was walking through was by far the worse on the station. There was blood everywhere and fresh gore. Light chunks of meat both human and alien lay scattered about the empty battlefield. There were no large acidic burns meaning no alien had been killed. People had been massacred here.

The end of the hallway led to a slightly jarred open doorway only large enough for two to exit through at a time. Arthur could see the beginnings of a quick welding to seal the door shut. That had apparently failed. With power to this small section of hallway disabled, Arthur had to pry the door open once again. He almost flinched when he saw the docking bay. Almost. Too much had happened for him to fully comprehend its horror.

Welcome to the docking bay, the graveyard, the massacre. Everywhere was a scene of shocking and disturbing carnage. Bodies were left strewn about. All were left their last moments etched in agony on their face. All the bodies had been absolutely demolished, limbs ripped apart, gore thrown as shrapnel, and notably deep claw marks that turned human flesh into pureed meat. The smell was horrible. Not because it smelled disgusting, but because he could almost taste the similarities between human flesh and the animal meats he had been forced to eat.

Arthur checked over each body lining them up with humane intent. There were a total of fifty three somewhat intact bodies here. He recognized some of them. Johnson had died with his hands clutched around the back of his head; a last ditch effort that failed to stop the secondary jaw of a drone. Mary lay with no expression on her face. The only sign of her last moments lay in the pain in her clear eyes. Bob was only recognizable because of his height otherwise his body was completely destroyed. Alice, that vibrant lively girl, had put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. Finally the man he had enjoyed terrifying had been skewered through his stomach and left to bleed to death. He lay there before Arthur bone white from the loss of blood. No animal would have thought to have provoked such pain and mutilation. There had been an intelligent mind behind this massacre.

The rest of the docking bay was an advanced open space design. It was massive more than enough to hold a few small modern vessels. He noticed a small escape vessel docked in a corner. The space station had an opening directly into the void of space. Beyond on that lay the glistening planet below and the endless vast field of stars. Arthur never really understood the science behind this sort of docking bay, but he knew that it actually cut down on overall operating costs. The strange bellowing hum was the only sign of the energy field that kept the void of space at bay. The standard space worthy escape raft floated perfectly over the opening held in place by retractable railed bridges. It was an aerodynamic spherical shell whose design was broken by the boxy geometric engines that shunted out to either side. The ship hovered over the gaping hole like a roller coaster ride about to drop down that first hill.

Arthur leaned over the edge of the bay staring down to the planet. Fourteen drops into a planet and hundreds of simulations never held back the dread as one was about to enter the atmosphere and the gravity hit one full force in the gut. The opening screamed from the brisk movement of air as it rippled and distorted the strange barrier.

"Warning," Mother's voice interrupted Arthur's thoughts. He backed away from the ledge as Mother's speech echoed across the room.

"Containment failure. Protocol 32b active. Thank you and have a nice day!"

Arthur stopped dead cold in his tracks. Protocol 32b. Anyone who ever traveled open space dreaded those words. It was a self destruct sequence used by the Company to make sure their investment was secure.

"Standard sequence set. Thank you and have a nice day!" Mother knew no irony and spoke sweetly. Standard sequence meant he had an hour left before the Company covered its tracks with a catastrophic detonation.

The air was suddenly filled with inhuman screams, and clarity defined its source. Arthur whipped around staring at the large steel garage-style door directly in front of the escape vessel. The words scrawled over the top of the door read "Generator Room" made barely legible by smears of acidic and human blood. His mind raced as alien hands drew the door upward pouring in a small army of drones, their thinner figures and pockmarked heads instantly noticeable. Their grace told a tale of deadliness and murder. Their organization showed fear inspiring intelligence.

Arthur made no hostile moves. He was not stupid. One or two he could take with some dumb luck, but an army of drones would massacre him. Some stood aggressively and flexed claw-like, bloodied hands and others knelt on all fours ready to pounce. The situation grew tenser as the main lighting shut off returning to warning sirens and flickering red emergency lights. Arthur's entire body tensed with strength that could crush steel, but he made no visible movement. Surprisingly they made no hostile moves themselves. It was a showdown again, but this was no western movie. The drones stood as jurors ready to hand down their verdict and add another notch to their killing spree.

_**Return, we must prepare.**_

And a voice spoke in Arthur's mind. It was a siren's song, accommodating, pleasant, ethereal, unearthly, and joyful. The voice echoed in his mind, words fail to describe its heavenly beauty. Every word he heard had a true meaning; he knew every detail and reasoning behind them. Every argument was complete and unbreakable. There was no room for confusion. It spoke to his curiosity to find the source.

**Return.**

The voice became the gentle tone of a mother. There was love behind those words. It was not a command but a suggestion filled with kindness and understanding. The drones ahead of him relaxed adopting a subservient pose as they re-entered the generator room. They had no reason to argue against it. Yet Arthur stood absolutely still.

**Arthur… please.**

It was a simple suggestion, a kind word, and a mother's love. Arthur fell in line with the others but kept his distance. He should have felt worry or unease at being unnaturally calm. He no longer cared about the emergency. The danger of dying horribly was washed away with that voice. All he wanted to do was find that voice, that hypnotic, beautiful voice.

The other drones ignored him as they began to wrench the generator door open. Their minds were silent focused on their job at hand. Arthur was the last to enter figuratively licking the heels of his unwanted brethren. The garage door jammed remaining open. There was complete silence now. The generators, dull-grey, metal cylinders harnessing fusion, gave no sound. The drones, equally silent, moved deeper into a cavernous maze of industrial equipment and Arthur followed suit. Maintenance tools lay everywhere in disarray; parts of delicate electronic equipment had been exposed their metal covers lying on the floor. A cold cup of coffee and a half eaten donut denoted a worker's makeshift table on an electronic console. Then the drones stopped before a large black wall.

**Welcome. **

That was no wall. It moved gracefully like the drones but it was much too heavy to be completely silent. He saw every thump as it slowly moved into the light. Dear God. The creature's crown, a massive plate of living armor, glinted to Arthur's vision under the red glow of the emergency lights. Its two immense legs supported the weight of its massive body. It had two arms proportional to its body and a curious underdeveloped, small set of arms set in the chest. The tail looked as if it could tear a tank in two; Arthur noted it was the same design as his tail flickering behind him in tense fear.

**There is nothing to fear, Arthur.**

It made the voice. That beautiful voice came from this monstrosity.

**You are so very honest.**

This was no animal. It could not be. The drones, they could barely form a coherent thought, but this creature spoke with emotion and intellect. It knew him; that was a terrifying advantage it held over him.

**Where is the danger?**

What danger? The emergency sirens began screeching breaking the trance Arthur was in. The protocol! He had to leave. He had to leave now! Arthur blurred as he dashed out of the room like a cheetah making a bee line directly for the escape raft. Behind him the army of drones and their Queen followed Arthur. Arthur flew through the open back end of the escape raft, galloped past the decent-sized storage bay, and forced the door open into the main cabin. The pilot's controls were located close to the front of the ship past three large bench style seats running along the walls with heavy duty seat belts and a safety bar for best protection.

The pilot's seat was a mass of simple electronic displays, sophisticated artificial emergency pilot mechanisms, and industrial looking manual controls. Arthur, overwhelmed at the mess, wracked his mind to remember how to activate the auto-pilot. He pushed away a pile of keyboards and damaged equipment onto the floor revealing the bright red autopilot switch locked behind glass. He registered no pain as he smashed through the cover with his hands and flicked the switch. Nothing happened.

Damn, he would have to pilot the craft in manually; something he had never done especially well in. Arthur calmed himself down and started the manual controls. His hands gripped the joystick like device used in such emergencies. The start up sequence seemed to take years slowly casting an artificial glow about the deck.

**We must hurry.**

Arthur fiddled with the controls ignoring the drones and the Queen behind him. The whole craft screamed as the docking mechanisms disengaged itself from the escape craft. Three clicks, Arthur remembered, and they were going to be dropped right into the planet's gravity field, a ride to hell. The final docking mechanism unlocked. Arthur felt his heart or equivalent leap into his throat.

They dropped burning straight through the energy barrier. The ship suddenly lost its stability and began tumbling as it exited the station. Immediately, Arthur noticed the controls were far too rigid as if they had been undergoing maintenance. He stared careful at the display before him noticing the plotted out course in a 3D array. Metal groaned as the engines birthed flame. The drones behind him screeched as the erratic g forces became unbearable. He desperately fought with the raft hoping to right himself and follow the regulated course.

**Calm. Be calm. Follow the course.**

Arthur, shaken, righted the craft following the plotted course. His mind raced. How far did they need to be to avoid the initial blast? The escape vessel groaned its sorrow as the space station exploded geysers of pure fire before turning into a sphere of blue super heated plasma. The sphere grew immensely becoming a fiery wall catching up rapidly to the escape vessel. The advanced radar laid out the edge of explosion sprinting right across void of spacing to its prey. Arthur saw his entire life and said his prayers.

**We do what we must, Arthur. Have faith in yourself.**

The wall of blue fire touched the very back end of the raft before stopping. That was enough to rupture a main engine sending heated chunks of the escape vessel careening in space. Arthur felt the whole ship cartwheel dramatically; the ships yelled its pain with a myriad of error messages. The display showed them fly completely out of the set course. Arthur heard the screech of metal from the damaged engines as it finally shut itself off. With only one engine for maneuverability and stiff controls, the escape raft prematurely entered the atmosphere.

**Show faith. Don't let it go.**

Arthur ignored the words of encouragement as he tried desperately to stabilize the ship. They would all die if the vessel hit the ground at this speed. Fire engulfed the craft casting fumes of heat in its wake.

**Let us pray. Hail Mary… full of grace.**

Arthur cocked his head as he heard her prayer. In his mind, he saw a young mother cradling a small child… her daughter. Who were you?

**Blessed are you amongst women…**

The dusty desert planet was so close now. He could make out the hills now and the small lakes dotting the landscape.

**Holy Mary… mother of God… pray for us sinners…**

The remaining engine began to wane as the damage took its toll. Arthur grasped the controls for the last time; the ship finally adjusted itself to a safer angle. But without the engines, Arthur could only rely on the hope the ship was sturdy enough to take an extremely rough landing. They were only hundreds of feet from the ground now.

**Now and at the our of our death, Amen.**

The vessel slammed into the ground horizontally tearing the final engine off and bouncing off a sand dune. Inside, Arthur watched as the front of the ship met the sandy ground exploding into a wave of brown sand right at him. He fell into darkness once again.

_Author's Notes:_ I noticed some stories have something like this… I hope I was original enough.


	6. Chapter 5

**Transformation**

Chapter 5

Consciousness weaved in and out between bouts of pain. His vision blurred distorting like heat waves forming a mirage. There was a sharp crack of melting metal. He knew hew was hurt badly, but paralysis had set in. Now he could only feel himself bleed and fade away. Peripheral vision became dark nothingness. All he could see was a tunnel directly ahead of him. The hull of the ship had been ripped wide open and beyond that gaping tear was an endless expanse of desert. Sand dunes rolled like waves in his failing vision. He was tumbling in an ocean of sand lost and confused. The air strangled him with ropes of heat. He could barely make out the wind from the sharp hisses, rapid footsteps around him and a sudden nausea from being moved. Finally consciousness itself failed.

Memories expunged themselves twisting and melting into one another. Blood stained walls, carnage, everything that was wrong. Arthur was there, a spectator in a coliseum. It was a horrifying circumstance to be both calm and accepting of the situation. The slate was wiped clean; the memories faded from view leaving a familiar half alien, half human room of his dreams.

An alien hand promptly bitch slapped Arthur.

"The hell is wrong with you!"

The alien hissed nearly crushing Arthur with a hand to his throat. It snarled and a lion's roar escaped its throat.

"We almost died!"

The alien began to hyperventilate with anger. It released Arthur carelessly onto the floor and slammed a fist through the familiar center table.

"We almost died. I almost died! Don't you have any will or self preservation?"

The alien breathed deeply catching its breathe to calm its fury.

"I hate her. That damn Queen… Why did you go to her?"

Arthur had no answer. He had probably been too shocked out of senses. He could claim innocence from horrors with calm acceptance of his own frailty. But he refused to accept any reason other than it was his fault and his fault alone. Guilt hurt and even as a victim he could not deny that emotion as clogged his heart and choked his thoughts.

"She cannot control us, oh no. Heaven forbid, I become a slave to that creature. But she's persuasive. All we need is one moment of weakness, and she'll strike! Bend us slightly to our will, change our very fate with a light touch to our mind."

The alien began pacing madly shaking at each thought. Arthur stood still silently swaying to his own shock. Burdened by the crushing weight of his mistake, his faint hope to cure himself could have been dashed by a towering monster. It tore at his very mind that he had almost given so easily to his instincts. He felt the weight of a thousand tons of worries, and fears, and anger, and trauma bear down on his soul. God, the massacre! A swirling mist faintly tainted the room becoming liquid darkness. He felt helpless. Helpless that he could not have done anything to save those people. Helpless he did not even try.

"The hangar incident still got you down, buddy? C'mon! They were at the wrong place at the wrong time."

The room seemed darker now and more foreboding. Was this the same room he remembered from his dream. Was his own subconscious mind playing tricks on him? The alien was brimming with vitality and anger. A little more than half the room had been consumed by the alien covering. The swirling mist became a thick polluted fog that guttered and whirled as the alien stepped through it.

"Who gives a damn!" The alien laughed hysterically. "It was their fault, Arthur. Leave it be. They died. They're dead. It's done."

No. Arthur's eyes narrowed as he felt his strength return to dispel the fog. This was far from over.

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Location: Earth

The static display flickered over and over again constantly repeating the same clip, a space station's last furious moments. Time stopped and rewound. The station again guttered as an explosion consumed the interior incinerating everything in its path, the final eulogy to the dozens dead onboard. The screen paused right as the flames burst through the hull of the station magnifying a distant speck of nothingness. The image enhanced itself becoming crystal clear and unmistakable to those watching. The speck went from unremarkable to impossible.

"That, is the standard life raft."

The lights turned on abruptly revealing the box like conference room lined with high ranked men and women, the Board of Directors. They were mostly weathered by internal politics of the Company and the weight of their daily issues. All except for their leader who stood proudly in front of the oblong, mirror-like conference desk. He was a tall elderly man, hair silver stricken, and a voice that held power and respect. He had aged like fine wine while his partners aged like stale cheese. Light reflecting off Earth and cast the ambient light through the three clear windows of the room. The eerie glow that invaded every corner of the room was dramatically highlighted in the reflective mirror like desk polished to absolute perfection.

"Do you see any problem with a life raft being launched at this time." He stood firmly in front of the display awaiting the answers of his fellow board of directors.

"That's impossible. Other than Dr. Nolan and Dr. Lorne, no one made it off the station to LV-786."

The conference room became a cacophony of arguments and noise that all stopped instantly with a wave of the man's hand. He turned and opened the only door to the hall letting in a statuesque woman who took her seat at the end of the table. Pull out her briefcase and pulling out all manner of small computers and stacks of small pamphlets and leaflets. She seemed to glow with the ambient light in the room as she spoke. She was very young, perhaps in her mid twenties, and could have easily passed for a grand daughter of the Board of Directors. Professionally dressed in a business suit, she had sort of ageless beauty stemming from her European background. Her dark blonde, almost brunette hair, was tastefully secured into a French braid.

"Now we know," he began again drawing the attention away from the newcomer. "No one made it off that station after Dr. Nolan and Lorne. No human being did. We-"

The speaker was abruptly cut off as the woman's briefcase took this time to spill its contents all over the floor.

"Oh! Sorry!" She hastily picked up all her items nervously brushing off the irritated side glances of the Board of Directors. Her sudden unprofessionalism betrayed the fragile nature of her disguise. Amongst possible war mongers, greedy and selfish sycophants, and questionably powerful individuals in the known universe, she was a sheep in wolf's clothing. It was as if a casual wind would reveal her insecurities and her frail humanity like curtains hiding a tragic crime scene.

"I'm sorry. Please…" She straightened out her business dress. "Please continue."

"Oh don't worry, Dr. Haley, we need you more for your expertise that your balance."

The Board chuckled lightly at her expense.

"Now back to the subject at hand, no human being could have gotten off the station within a few minutes of the self destruct. The last transmission revealed all human personnel were dead. We know who… what… made it off that hunk of steel. Whether it was by accident or purposeful, I don't know. But what I do know, gentlemen," The man's voice rose in fury with every word. "I do know a fourth of the Company's investments are lying in ruins on that desert planet! Dr. Lorne may have betrayed us, but Dr. Nolan was foolish enough to make the situation worse. Dr. Haley, if you please."

"He's right," she responded before standing up to distribute several small leaflets of information. "Dr. Nolan was supposed to send us the latest nanite build when he landed his ship at the terra-forming plant. He did not. The current nanite builds we have do not work as Lorne has reported. We have reason to believe, Lorne has been sending us outdated models; builds that that are half working. Possibly sabotaged."

The board grumbled in outrage.

"Nolan has not responded since this situation escalated. Most importantly, his ship last reported minor damage from entry." Dr. Haley nervously coughed as the entire Board of Directors focused their attention on her. "It's very possible that they are still hold up in the old terra-forming plants and secondary labs on LV-786. If the ship was damaged in entering the atmosphere, there would be no one light years around to fix it."

The leader of the board of directors smiled lightly.

"Thank you, Dr. Haley. It seems we were right to request your expertise. This is the reason why I have requested your presence here."

The board of directors grumbled to themselves as they all focused on Haley.

"How long did you work with Dr. Lorne before he was transferred?"

"About five years on his nanite research. I was an assistant at the time gaining valuable experience in the field."

The man smiled again before calling in another person in the hall. The newcomer was dressed in a highly decorated military uniform. It was almost impossible to determine his ethnicity, and he remained unreadable. His piercing brown eyes told nothing. He looked more machine than man chiseled from steel. Perfect in character and foreboding strength, he was equally out of place as Dr. Haley in the Board of Directors. But whereas she was weak and kind, he was strong and uncaring. If any emotion could escape from his lips, it would be of cold anger and furious brutality.

"As you all may know," the newcomer spoke gently but managed to shake the room with his voice. "I am General Sherman and I will be in charge of this 'rescue' mission."

A member of the Board of Directors spoke harshly.

"General, I would like to know how you can handle the situation any better than your previous disasters with these creatures."

Again the General spoke lightly weaved with hidden hostility.

"I will handle this matter personally. I will handle this matter under my direct control. Other times, my command has been compromised by your actions endangering the mission. This situation has, by your actions, exploded out of control and now I am going to fan the fires. I cannot do that if outside interference, lacking knowledge of military tactics and common sense, keeps forcing me to lead suicide raids."

The member who spoke up abruptly stood down. It was eerie how Sherman's voice was almost monotone lacking a certain humane grace.

"That is right, this will be my mission. Unlike the previous situation, we are not going to run in like idiots. This time, I want enough men and firepower to solve any problem. We will burn bridges and scorch the planet if I have to. Most importantly, Dr. Haley here will accompany us on this mission planet-side to retrieve Dr. Lorne."

Said Doctor coughed loudly as she almost swallowed her tongue. She immediately rose to her feet in indignation.

"You can't be serious! Those things are killing machines! I saw the records! What if they're alive! I never fired a gun; never used a weapon in my life. I'll be slaughtered…"

"Calm now, Dr. Haley. Not only are you best we have to an expert of Lorne's nanite technology, but you personally knew him. Dr. Nolan has not responded when he had to and therefore, the worst case scenario, Dr. Lorne has forcefully taken over. We are wasting far too much time. Get your bags packed we will be leaving early tomorrow."

General Sherman removed himself from the room leaving a gaping Dr. Haley sputtering behind him.

"But, but, I cannot… I mean… there's no way… that."

The leader calmly placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry Dr. Haley, General Sherman is an expert and will not put you in any sort of danger. But he is our best chance of completing this task. No one else has the experience he has."

Dr. Haley left the meeting into the non-descript halls of the space station orbiting Earth clutching the stack of papers that had fallen out of her briefcase to her chest.

The halls broke way to windowed observation rooms surrounded by a endless stars and a daringly beautiful Earth. She walked slowly captured slightly by the visage. The Earth silhouetted her figure highlighting her frail beauty, her worries, her fears, and her determination. But after years of staring out into the same wonders as a minor perk to her research, she walked on.

"What have I gotten myself into?" She muttered to herself. The papers clutched to her chest took this to slip from her weakening grasp slightly wet from hounding fears and humble tears.

_Author's Note: Okay, I sat down and fully fleshed out all my ideas (they were merely outlined before). This chapter was rewritten and then put aside before I finally felt somewhat satisfied with it._


	7. Chapter 6

**Transformation**

Chapter 6

Arthur was getting tired of this. His entire body sent shivers of pain throughout tired, weakened limbs. He was getting damn tired of this. His vision cleared to human clarity and beyond creating waves of nausea. He waddled like a sick puppy a few feet before forced to rest. The ground seemed to be coated with glue and the stalactite ceiling swirled like a vortex and roared in desperation to pull him in. With great effort, Arthur grasped the ground and summoned his remaining strength to stay standing on all fours. The ripples of sickness slowed as his body began to fully recover.

Arthur jumped to his feet nearly throwing his entire weakened balance off. His head slammed into a hanging stalactite; a former hanging stalactite as Arthur severed the annoyance with a quick tail swipe. It took five seconds to figure out he was in a cave and five more seconds to realize that was seriously wrong. Where was he before? A scream of whirling metal and a shower of sand rocked his memory straight. He was still alive after losing control in the high atmosphere with a damaged ship. That was a death sentence he narrowly avoided. Lucky bastard. A light trickle of water attested to a small underground river floating somewhere above him.

Now where the hell was he? "

_Stop asking questions and get on with it._

The transformed man whipped his head around looking for the source of the voice and found nothing but himself. Water dripped from stalactites running down his chitin-like skin. Arthur reached to wipe off the water but felt only dry skin. Concussions played tricks on the mind. Right? He crawled through a myriad of tunnels leading to a simple maze like cavern. He followed a small trench dug after he was dragged bodily from the wreckage and dropped into this cavern like a sack of meat. He listened to the water as it flowed downwards and went up the opposite direction.

_Get on with it. _

A wave of nausea hit Arthur again. Arthur carefully explored tenderly testing his light wounds feeling little more than strained muscles after a too difficult work out. Alien physical superiority made crashing into a planet nothing more than shaking off a few cramps. But it did nothing to shake off mental exhaustion. He could faintly see the faint vibrations of light movement up ahead. It was the largest cavern spotlighted by the everlasting desert sun through the small entrance twenty feet away.

_STOP WAITING AND GET ON WITH IT!_

A jackhammer thundered through Arthur's head and he collapsed rolling on the floor with every pulse of pain. Damn! He felt the need to wretch violently but had no ability to do so. He did not need this right now! It took Arthur five seconds to realize he was completely surrounded by an army of drones. All cocked their heads in curiosity and seethed with an emotion resembling concern. Every alien in the cavern paused; no one moved an inch.

**Leave him be.**

The Queen's hypnotic voice sent them running back to her. Arthur trailed them. Deep in the back of the interconnected cave system, the Queen languished. The drones surrounded her offering support in whispers and hisses. They knew she was in pain, but they did not understand why. She was in pristine condition looking as if she walked around a block instead of crashing into a planet. Yet every ragged movement from her massive body was slow and exhausting. The drones tendered to her as some mockery of a family.

He was human.

They moved to help her, and he felt as if he should join them.

He did not belong here!

He should not be here!

_THEN LEAVE!_

This time he listened to the voice. He darted out of the caverns ignoring his still weakened condition. The bright almost orange desert world shocked the senses. The scenery was covered by a dull blue atmosphere, and sand extended forever occasionally broken by a large oasis or the mountain range where the caverns were carved by small underground rivers. His human like run instinctively turned into a wolf-like lope surfing across the wind-dominated sand dunes. He ran, but in his mind he flew. He flew far away from this scorched world and soared free.

He had to stop eventually to rest on the trough of a fifteen foot high sand dune. The caverns were now miles behind him. The mountain range that contained them was nothing more than a small hill on the horizon. A pillar of translucent grey smoke sparkled a hundred meters beyond above him. The life pod! Was it still intact? From a standing start, he cleared the sand dune landing clumsily in the other side. His balance, still a little off from diving into a planet, gave out and he tumbled the rest of the way to the ship.

Minutes, hours… Arthur could no longer tell. The sun never moved an inch since when he ventured out. The ship was destroyed beyond all recognition. A twisted sculpture of steel and melted electronics was scooped into a deep trench and mixed up like a landfill. He searched through the wreckage for a ray of hope, some sort of communications equipment, a map, or something! His mind played tricks in him disguising random junk as communications devices. Panic began to get the better of him. He began to dig wildly; claws ripped through every piece of equipment. He accidentally grasped a piece of red hot metal. Arthur screamed in pain and shook it off by relentlessly punching the wreckage, denting thick steel, and kicking up a plume of sand.

He forced himself to relax and picked out chunks of metal stuck underneath his claws. He vowed to himself: he would find a way off this rock. God willing, he would escape and regain his humanity. He reached down and picked up a clump of sand letting it slide between his fingers. God help whatever got in his way.

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Location: High Orbit, LV-786

A cylindrical gun shaped ship barreled silently through space. The mission was classified. The destination was withheld and given only to General Sherman, sole commander of this operation.

Dr. Haley breathed a stressful sigh as the cryogenic status woke her body. She slipped out of the cryogenic tube; the equipment monitoring her life signs promptly went into stand by. She stretched lightly, yawning, and pushing stiff blonde hair away from her eyes. Some people dreamed during cryogenic status. She never had anything of the sort. It was just a prolonged nap. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and smoothed out her cryogenically-approved white tank top and matching shorts..

The cryogenic room was a hexagonal metal cage with two automatic doors recessed into the wall. The room held six dull grey cryogenic chambers aligned with each edge of the room. Otherwise, the room was an immaculately clean off white. What time was it?

"Morning, Dr. Haley."

Dr. Haley nearly jumped through the roof, startled.

General Sherman, in normal battle dress, watched her. It was unnerving to keep eye contact. His glare could carve through solid granite. She nervously fidgeted before bringing up the strength to respond.

"Morning, General," She whispered and then forcefully cleared her throat with a light cough.

"We will be arriving at our destination shortly. If you notice, the others have woken up a few hours earlier than you." General Sherman entered the room and the door sealed the chambers.

"I assure you, I am prepared-"

"Dr. Haley, how well have you known Dr. Lorne?"

Dr. Haley looked confused for a moment.

"I believe you worked with him for a few years did you not?"

"Yes," she nodded. "I was his assistant for his early nanite research. Nothing as complex as what he has now, of course, but –"

"You knew him well I take it." General Sherman opened the door turning his back to her.

"Yes, he was almost a father to me. He helped out when I nee-"

"Very well."

General Sherman interrupted Dr. Haley, turned his back to her and then casually walked out the door. Dr. Haley stood with her mouth gaping partly in confused shock and partly in anger. She was an experienced professional, not a child to be ignored!

"Dr. Haley, we will be arriving within an hour. Best you get ready." Sherman's voice echoed through metal hallways muffling the source.

"I don't need this… I don't want this…" A strand of hair fluttered past her face before she curled it back into place in frustration.

Twenty minutes later, a hastily prepared Dr. Haley drabbed in a professional suit, held a briefcase full of important documents and journeyed as fast as she could to a prepared dropship. The hangar was exceptionally large, an example to how much money the Company was willing to regain lost research. A contingent of marines, the best of the best, loaded, checked, and double-checked the most advanced war weaponry the Company had at its disposal. The creaking of power loaders, the screech of steel sliding over steel, the satisfying whirr of ammunition locking into place, and the boisterous chatter of marines made Dr. Haley stand out like a neon pink sign in the middle of a industrial wasteland. The marines, all at the peak of their physical conditioning, were a nondescript mix of men and women. Dr. Haley gave no concern to their presence; she had a hard time as it was maintaining her professional mask. All the marines were young, armed to the teeth, aching for a fight, and thoroughly amused at Dr. Haley's presence.

As Dr. Haley pranced past them, most took their time to holler their amusement at her presence. She ignored it summoning her mental strength to maintain her careful crafted professional image. Just keep calm. Just maintain.

"Dr. Haley." General Sherman said again startling said doctor as he seemed to appear from the shadows.

A marine from the back cracked a disgusting joke about Dr. Haley a little too loud. General Sherman cocked his head in the marine's direction. The marine promptly shut up and began working double time.

"I'll take this time to brief you. Our assumptions have proven correct. The old terraforming plant's generators are operational. We believe Dr. Lorne is just waiting there. The marines will try to handle this situation as quickly and as professionally as possible."

A sergeant yelled his throat hoarse shouting out his orders. Dr. Haley breathed deeply hiding a nervous gulp and switched her briefcase over to her other hand. Marines all around her began to fill three loaded dropships while some stayed behind to finish maneuvering cargo about the hangar.

"Glad to hear it," she replied.

"Of course. Since you have worked with him for so long; you are going to have to accompany us planet side."

Dr. Haley had been hoping she could someone weasel her way out of danger. But when General Sherman spoke, disagreeing was like trying to move a mountain. So with the best of her strength, her confidence, and every fiber of her being, Dr. Haley was able to mutter her response.

"Yes, Sir."

General Sherman nodded lightly, forgot she was standing in front of him, and strolled off melding into the shadows. Dr. Haley could barely keep her right eye from twitching and her right hand from crushing the handle of the briefcase. That was really freaky. She breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded to sit down on a metal crate near a support beam. A couple of marines left on cleaning duty chose to ignore her presence, but she could not stop from overhearing their conversations.

"You hear about the marines on a bug hunt kinda like this one?" Dr. Haley did not turn to see who was speaking, but his voice was deep and easy to discern.

"Mission went awry, I hear. There's been word they had to detonate the power plant to get rid of that one." This marine was definitely female.

"Yeah, but what bug hunt would do that? Company's withholding info from us yet something horrible happened to call us in. Especially with General Sherman here."

Dr. Haley held her breath at the General's name.

"Sherman," the female marine said. "You think the rumors are true?"

"Rumors… the one's about how he outmaneuvered three rogue cruisers and forcefully took control of a pirate ship with a small contingent of marines?"

"No, that's bullshit. Company would have awarded him through the roof. He'd been on the cover of every magazine. I'm talking about him killing a group… of marines…. with nothing more than his bare hands during an exercise! Just to get out of basic training."

Dr. Haley unconsciously leaned in closer.

"Probably exaggerated, there's probably some truth to it." The deep voiced marine grumbled something intelligible. "I've been at this job for twenty years and I've never met a person like him. I can't read him. It's like there's nothing there; not even the slightest inkling of human emotion. He has probably never hesitated. Never had any doubts or ramifications. But hey, you gotta do some serious shit to get his level."

The conversation soon drifted onto less morbid talk drifting into casual humor. Dr. Haley cradled her head in her hands wondering again: what the hell did she get herself into? She breathed deeply, shook off her worries, and checked the documents within her briefcase. She had volumes of information on every marine on this mission, but General Sherman had drawn complete blanks. All information on him dwindled down to top secret status.

Half an hour later, Dr. Haley found herself locked in a dropship with the countdown to the planetary drop ticking off in single digits. The dropship pilot was female, black with dark brown hair, and completely at ease; it seemed women had a knack for piloting dropships considering the disproportionate number of female pilots to male. That was the least of her worries. General Sherman had kindly decided to accompany her. To show his kindness, he sat directly in front of her on the other side of the dropship and stared her down. Dr. Haley spent her time examining the floor. A few marines crowded the back end of the dropship as far away from General Sherman as possible.

"Ten seconds!" The pilot answered. "Ah ha! I'll never get tired of this. Buckle in your seatbelt Miss Haley?"

Miss? What is with all these people treating her like a child? She was a prodigy, a genius!

"Doctor Haley," she spat, "and you would be?"

The pilot chuckled to herself, flipped down a console, and flicked a few switches.

"Miss Clay. Most people call me Cassie. Oh and don't yell will yah?"

The dropship screamed a million miles an hour as it was unleashed from the docking mechanism. Dr. Haley felt her kidneys touch the back of her throat. The dropship almost immediately righted itself. The marines screamed, cheered, and bragged about how many times they have done this. General Sherman just stared ahead lazily and seemed annoyed.

"You know what I like about you, **_Doctor_** Haley?" Cassie screamed over the onrush of air as the outer hull of the dropship turned a fiery orange matching the planet it was entering.

"You're here, dressed to kill, but look like you got no hope in the world, ha ha!"

Cassie gently guided the dropship through a computer controlled course. The ship eased its inertia but Dr. Haley was beginning to turn green at the gills. But hell if she was going to be talked down to by some overrated scumbag pilot.

"You got some nerve, **_Miss_** Clay. Last time I checked, I didn't have to guide a computer through hoops." Dr. Haley yelled. The marines behind her chuckled and 'oooed.'

"Ha ha! Most of the science advisors are usually tight asses. Talk with me for a while, doc, let's just start over." Cassie double checked the instruments.

"Quiet," General Sherman commanded. "We're done talking now. I need you all ready in case something unexpected occurs."

The dropship hit some sort of air turbulence that shook the whole chassis of the ship. Cassie muttered a few choice swear words before hastily resetting a course. The computer monitor went slightly haywire, flickered in and out, and worked to find a more approachable course. The cabin turned red with emergency lights. A rumble hit the ship chucking the entire crew into the safety restraints and knocked the air out of Dr. Haley. Cassie whispered a few more choice swear words as her window was utterly darkened over by a torrent of uplifted sand.

"Yeah, shit, we got problems. We're gonna fall a bit behind the others; damn weather here is fucked up. Computer's telling me we got some sort of sand storm that kicked out of nowhere. Damn it's huge, like a hurricane formed instantly. This planet was only partial terraformed?"

"Do not worry about the weather, Miss Clay." Sherman answered abruptly. "Get us to the destination as quickly as possible."

"Yes sir," Cassie muttered and gestured a sarcastic salute before mouthing a few more choice swear words.

The dropship broke through the storm and the turbulence returned to normal. The emergency lights shut off, and computer instruments reset to normal. Dr. Haley composed herself holding in the contents of her stomach.

"Well, there it is." Cassie noted as the dropship maneuvered ever closer to an immense structure shimmering on desert sands with the enormous sand hurricane nipping at their heels.

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Arthur could now understand why people changed in prison. This planet had become his cage. The desert was everywhere without stopping. Nothing except the occasional oasis, strangely out of place, dotted the landscape. Time past differently. The sun moved but there was no true night. The days on this world were cycles of bright mornings and slightly dimmer evenings.

Arthur had to stay at the caverns to rest and gave no acknowledgement to any passing drone or Queen. The drones brought food, small mammal like reptile creatures that lived near oasis, and he ate them with no satisfaction. He was almost glad they brought them in dead. The Queen barely moved at all just waiting in her cavern eating little. At times he could see through her eyes to memories she was kept cycling in her head. A young girl smiled, laughed, and played through beautiful Earth-like fields. Sometimes the Queen would start a prayer and then promptly forget it halfway through.

Every morning Arthur would leave the caverns meticulously exploring the landscape. He doubted the Company would go through all the trouble of terraforming a planet for nothing. So he would search in an ever increasing circle aided by his superior memory. When the light dimmed, he would return again, eat what the drones had left, and listen to the ever blurring memories of the Queen.

The world only grew more alien the longer he stayed. Without any way to tell time, he could have been here for months or years. Sometimes he wondered if he had truly died in the crash and this place was now his hell. The weather was absolutely chaotic. Dull clear days could turn almost instantly into a swirling nightmare. Tornadoes sprung up without warning sucking up an enormous amount of dirt into the air. By contrast, every oasis was a sparkling, crystal clear jewel, but each extended miles into the ground. Occasionally something enormous would move down there; a dark shadow that moved erratically like an uprooted earthworm suffering a seizure.

After many "days" of wandering in ever increasing journeys, Arthur knew this planet was slowly bleeding away. Terraforming a planet was a complicated process that Arthur knew all too well. Hell, he had worked on one. Chaotic weather meant the planet was trying to revert itself to its former inhospitable landscape. He still did not know the limits of his survivability, but he doubted he could survive on a planet with constant hurricanes and tornadoes. So Arthur would work that much harder to find a way home, found nothing, and came back to the caverns in greater amounts of despair.

He began to watch the drones in his spare time, studying them, and searching for any sort of human like intelligence. Most were robotic in their nature and did their duties with ant like precision. But a select few dawdled over minute things. One would stack rocks and the kick them down before repeating the strange exercise again. Another seemed enamored with the cavern's walls and began to dig or randomly scratch at it. Over time after every excursion, Arthur came back to see the drone's stack of rocks began to take an architecturally sound design and every scratch in the wall began to piece itself together like a puzzle forming a picture. But most importantly, the Queen was the greatest mystery. He tried to talk to her once, but she just pushed him aside.

One evening he returned on his daily journeys to find the Queen outside near a small oasis on rather large sand dune. Arthur stayed a good distance back. A dusty tornado scurried over the water becoming a twisted geyser of pure water. She caressed the sand between her powerful fingers and slowly smoothed a picture. Her hands slowly dug an almost photographic likeness of a young girl smiling. But when she tried to fill out the eyes, her hands stopped hovering in mid air. Arthur could see her memory again, but the face in her mind was out of focus and forgotten. In a sudden moment of rage, she tore at the carefully crafted pictures, and her fists pounded deep into the earth. She fled back to the caverns leaving behind a great sense of loss in the air.

After that event, Arthur felt like lost her trust. He often felt watch. He could just almost sense the drone following him. Perhaps it was tailing him and keeping tabs on him. It was like the Queen was a mob boss keeping an eye on her investment. But he did not care. Let the drone follow. He had gained confidence with this body. It even felt natural to be this way. And he kept searching.

He crawled over an immense hill. His body was lax with exhaustion but with some effort he pulled himself over the crest. The sun glinted off immense buildings in the distance. One was an offline terraforming plant that was built awkwardly like an upside down bird's nest. Another, a boxy structure with its windows covered by weather proof shutters, was probably the living quarters. Judging from a big hole through a storage facility on ground level, the living quarters must have been hastily built. He was elated, ecstatic, excited, and high all at once. He laughed mentally as he gained his second win and made a mad dash to the hole torn on the side of the building. But Arthur had made a couple oversights during his discovery. As he dashed to the building, he failed to notice the distinct shapes of military dropships descending through the atmosphere. But most importantly, he failed to notice the laugh in his head was not his own.

_Author's Notes:_ _ Sorry for the lateness of this one. I was not quite satisfied with what I originally had in mind._


End file.
